No, Hoenig and Fields, The U.S. Health Care System Isn’t Even Close To Being The Best

On today’s Cashin’ In, the fat-cat conservatives fearmongered about the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) by discussing how the problems of its co-ops could leave taxpayers on the hook for a billion dollars. Not surprisingly, it was left to liberal Juan Williams to point out how the co-ops’ problems are largely the fault of Congressional restrictions put in place after lobbying from the insurance industry – and thanks to budget cuts demanded by Republicans. Instead, the Fox News conservatives suggested it was all because President Obama had somehow impeded our country’s fabulous free market health care.

In the middle of the debate, Williams was asked by regular Jonathan Hoenig, “Didn’t we have a free market health care before the Affordable Care Act?”

Did Fields do any research on the subject before she shot from the hip? If so, how did she miss the World Health Organization’s ranking of the U.S. as number 37 in overall ranking, which included 15th in overall performance and first in overall expenditure per capita? Or the Commonwealth Fund’s ranking of seven countries – in which the U.S. came in dead last? (Business Insider, June 2012)

So Fields and Hoenig are the ones who were “factually untrue.”

By the way, France came in first in the WHO ranking, with Italy second. In the Commonwealth ranking, Australia and Canada came in first and second, respectively. Almost all the countries ahead of the U.S. have some government-funded insurance.